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Canadians trapped in Chile quake chaos

SANTIAGO–Dr. Gonzalo Alvarez, a respirologist at Ottawa Hospital, was supposed to be in the air when Saturday's earthquake struck.

He was booked on an Air Canada flight bound for Toronto on Friday night, but the plane was grounded for repairs following a bird strike.

Chileans sit amid rubble in the town of Talcahuano on March 1, 2010. Ottawa respirologist Dr. Gonzalo Alvarez, inset, and his family were caught in Chile's massive earthquake after their Santiago-to-Toronto flight was delayed on Feb. 26, 2010. (MARTIN BERNETTI, AFP / GETTY IMAGES, SUPPLIED PICTURE (inset))

Alvarez and his family, including three small children, were put up at Santiago's Sheraton Hotel.

A few hours later, Alvarez was lying on top of his 6-year-old son Miguel trying to shield him from the broken glass and furniture that was flying around their seventh-floor hotel room.

The 8.8-magnitude quake struck offshore early Saturday about 100 kilometres northeast of Chile's second city of Concepcion and 325 kilometres south of the capital, Santiago.

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At least 723 people are confirmed dead, mainly in the hard-hit Maule region south of Santiago. The quake destroyed or badly damaged 1.5 million homes and affected some 2 million people.

"It was crazy," Alvarez said.

"There was glass everywhere from broken mirrors and bookcases, the TV came down on us, paintings came off the wall, it was mayhem ... I thought the whole building was going to go down."

He and other Canadians at the Sheraton made their way down the emergency exit in the dark, and gathered outside shivering in the cold, many still in their pyjamas.

"People thought a bomb had gone off ... the hotel staff were very helpful," Alvarez said.

"A gardener brought us some drapes to cover one man who was naked while some cooks started a fire to keep us warm."

Aftershocks have continued to rattle guests since the earthquake, but after spending a couple of days with relatives, Alvarez is back at the hotel with no word on when he might be able to leave.

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Santiago's Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport remains closed for outbound flights since the terminal suffered major damage, including the departure ramp, which collapsed.

"We were standing on that ramp Friday night and a few hours later it was gone ... if we'd stayed at the airport I'm sure we'd be dead," Alvarez said.

Not everyone has been so lucky.

The death toll has risen steadily as rescue teams pull bodies from collapsed buildings and reach isolated coastal towns hit by the tsunami that reached shore a few minutes after the quake.

The largest toll was in the city of Constitucion, where 350 people where reported killed.

"We are facing an emergency unparalleled in Chile's history," said President Michelle Bachelet.

In Ottawa, the Foreign Affairs department said 520 Canadians known to be in Chile had been contacted as of Monday afternoon, while 337 others had not yet been located, The Canadian Press reported.

Marisa Minoletti, a Chilean who grew up in Ottawa and now lives with her parents on the 20th floor of a building in Santiago, says the experience was terrifying.

"Everything fell down in my bedroom ... I thought the building would collapse and that would be the end," she said.

Minoletti later discovered bruises on her arms and legs but doesn't recall how she got them.

"When it stopped shaking my father tried to open the door but it was jammed so we had to break it down.

"It took us an hour just to get out."

But at least the building is still standing – thanks to strict building codes designed to make structures earthquake-proof. Some new apartment buildings collapsed in the Santiago suburb of Maipu.

The damage was much more serious in Concepcion, where buildings toppled, fires raged out of control and people remained trapped.

The government has declared a "state of catastrophe" in the Maule and Bio Bio regions, which includes Concepcion, but help has been slow in arriving.

The main highway linking Santiago to Concepcion has been cut in various places, with several bridges collapsed.

Rescue and recovery efforts have also been hampered by lack of electricity and water in many areas. Some towns in the Maule and Bio Bio regions still have no power or water more than 60 hours after the quake, making conditions difficult for survivors.

Law and order is also a major concern. On Sunday, the government sent army troops to Concepcion and imposed a curfew to control looting, but troops arrived too late to stop looters from ransacking 11 supermarkets.

In the city of Chillan, 269 prisoners escaped from the El Manzano prison when a wall collapsed.

And with night approaching, residents were arming themselves to protect their families and property.

But the situation is even worse in small coastal villages hit by the tsunami. Aerial footage shows the tsunami has left a wide swath of debris and corpses.

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